


all the bulbs all coming in to begin

by Capitola



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Curtain Fic, Family Fluff, Implied/Referenced Pregnancy, Inspired by Fanfiction, M/M, Minor Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast, critmas treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:27:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28465296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capitola/pseuds/Capitola
Summary: Another life follows.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay/Fjord
Comments: 10
Kudos: 51
Collections: Critmas Exchange 2020





	all the bulbs all coming in to begin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chrome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrome/gifts).
  * Inspired by [guide me to where we restart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25515865) by [Chrome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrome/pseuds/Chrome). 



> Happy Critmas, Chrome! _guide me to where we restart_ was one of my favorite fics from this year, and I hope I've done it justice with a little coda here.
> 
> Title is from "June Hymn" by The Decemberists.

The baby comes the next spring after.

Much of it, Fjord is relieved to find, is the same as the first time, the decision to try, the waiting. The hundred petty aches and pains and illnesses that affect a body growing a new life, the feeling of a kick and a heartbeat growing steadily stronger. Some of it is different. They'd put up all of the things Cory had outgrown in trunks in the house's tight little attic, as clothes for a child of her heritage were an unusual size to give to anyone else in the village. It's a new feeling to bring the old things down, to remember the origins of each one, to wash them again in anticipation of use. 

Fjord feels more than a little selfish for it, for choosing to have another child by blood, another that they know Caduceus will outlive. Caduceus doesn't seem as bothered by it as he was before Cory was born, perhaps the certainty of a full life for this child is enough to assuage some of his fears of that eventual grief. 

Having Cory around is different too, of course. With a midwife for a father she's no stranger to the facts of life, but she has questions every step of the way and she's not shy about asking them. Caduceus is better at the answers than Fjord, having had a childhood where these things were talked about more frankly.

They go back to the Grove again, for the birth, and Cory's obvious anxiety about the new role of big sister versus the loss of being the only and favorite child is softened by having the attention of her grandparents and aunts and uncle. She enjoys spending a few weeks in her father's ancestral home, testing at the borders of the graveyard and the forest the same way she wanders out into the surf at home. There are enough adults around that someone is always there to keep an eye on her, to get her to come help gather spring onions or rhubarb, or help with tending the graves, instead of wandering off into the Savalierwood looking for trouble.

“The second one is certainly easier,” Constance assures Fjord in a conversation off the porch, watching Cory play with her Auntie Belle around the sprawling remains of an oak tree, one that never recovered fully from the blight. “But just because you’ve done this before doesn’t mean there’ll be nothing new.”

They call the baby Camellia, for the tea bushes with soft white flowers that grow wild in the Savalierwood, slightly less wild in the Grove. A rooted name, to contrast with her sister named for a creature of the sea and sky. It is quickly shortened to Elly. Elly Clay has dark hair like her sister’s, but her skin is a shade off, with more green to her complexion than Cory, like the color of a stone lichen. She wails and wails like Cory did, too, and even having the more concrete knowledge that the crying does not last forever turns out to be small comfort for her family in the middle of the night. 

She is well-celebrated when they return to Bluecove as well, a miracle upon the miracle of Caduceus’s return last year. People bring gifts or sometimes just half-formed excuses to come in and see the new baby, and she takes all of it in stride, with that blank little newborn cross-eyed look, when she can be bothered to wake up.

Elly sleeps through the night much sooner than Cory did; indeed, she seems able to fall asleep anywhere, at any time of day. Though she still has her fusses like any baby, her default state that whole first year seems to be sleep. 

By the time she starts walking, it's spring again, and she follows Caduceus around the garden at a slow, wobbly pace. She's still far too little to be any help, and is indeed a bit of a hindrance, but, as Caduceus points out, the ground is a much softer place for her to fall than the floor.

The milestones are easier to anticipate with the second one, though no two children grow exactly alike, not even sisters. Elly’s teeth do come in around the same time as Cory’s did, the same little tusks poking through her gum, but she moves from walking to running sooner than Cory did, motivated perhaps by the desire to follow after her big sister as soon as she’s able. 

Cory is well old enough by then to go down by herself to Bluecove, to find other kids to play with. Her different-ness from the other children is softened by the fact that her father delivered most of them, by the Clays being well-known to the town, but Fjord can't help but keep an ear out. He remembers what it is to recognize yourself as the odd one out, and just how easily other children can turn cruel. Thus far, his fears for Cory have been mercifully unfounded.

The rest of the Nein come by to visit all at once when Elly is born, and in twos and threes throughout the year, the increased frequency caused by a mix of the new baby and the still-lingering sting of Caduceus’s disappearance, the reminder that the promise of the years they have left together are not a guarantee. 

Caleb and Essek come by together, one day that following summer, which is not unusual these days except that they’re easily the most at ease that Fjord has ever seen them. Caleb’s hair is styled in a way Fjord’s never seen him do before, braids winding and weaving and overlapping. It looks familiar, like styles Fjord had seen before in Rosohna, and when he compliments Caleb on it, while Cory has dragged Essek over to look at her books, Caleb laughs.

“I should have said something, I forgot you might not know what it means - they don’t wear rings, in the Dynasty.” He traces his hand lightly over one braid. 

It takes a moment to click. “You got married?” Fjord asks, eyes darting from Caleb down the hall to Essek.

“Engaged,” Caleb corrects. “Just engaged. I think Veth and Jester would have my head on a plate if we dared to elope like that.”

Fjord can’t help but laugh at that, remembering how much they had insisted on things being _just so_ when he and Caduceus were married.

They stay much of the day but still miss Caduceus, kept late on his trip to the market by a patient he’d stopped to check in on going into early labor. When he gets back it’s going on sunset, which is late at almost the height of the summer. The girls should be in bed by now but Cory has a fear now of going to bed before Caduceus gets home. Fjord knows they should be doing more to curb that, but some nights it’s easiest to just let her stay up. He watches as Cory catches fireflies in the garden, gently bouncing a sleepy Elly on his lap. 

When Caduceus walks up, though, she perks up, and insists on being set on her feet to toddle the dozen steps to greet him. He bends down to wrap his arms around her slowly, leaning the weight of his bad knee on his staff, and just as slowly pulling himself up with his daughter in one arm. Fjord tells him the news of the day, of the visit, over Elly alternating between falling asleep and fussing to be let up. She pushes herself up, finally, determinedly walking over to her sister. She topples with a few steps left to go, and even though he knows he needn’t, Fjord can feel himself almost getting up to catch her.

He holds Caduceus’s hand tighter, holding himself back as much as his husband. They watch as Cory reaches down for Elly's hands and pulls her back up, and a smile passes between the four of them in the summer twilight.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Winterling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterling42) for reading over this. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated <3 You can also find me on [tumblr](https://capitola.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/knitinerant).


End file.
